Moving the discussion here from the US Politics thread.

This war sadly looks to still keep going for months with the repercussions likely lasting for generations, while the threat of escalation to a full scale regional war comes closer day by day.

Timeline:
- 1800s Rise of anti-semitism in Europe
- 1897 Zionism created
- 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement
- 1917 Balfour declaration
- 1917 - 1937 British Mandate
- 1920 British colonialism established Mandatory Palestine as a colonial entity, opening the doors to Zionist colonization.
- 1933 Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party come to power, start of the Holocaust
- 1936 - 1939 Rebellion in Palestine, The Arab Revolt, Mass Uprising
- 1937 Peel Partition Plan
- 1937 - 1948 Jewish terrorism under British mandate
- 1938 Kristallnacht, series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories
- 1941 - 1945 Holocaust becomes the genocide of 6 million Jews (as well as about 500 thousand from other minorities)
- 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine leading to civil war in Mandatory Palestine
- 1948 Tantura Massacre, Deir Yassin massacre, Haifa massacre, and more
- 1948 Nakba displacement of 750 thousand Palestinian Arabs (50% of the population at the time)
- 1956 Khan Yunis and Rafah massacre 275+ Palestinians killed while looking for Palestinian Fedayeen (resistance) during the Suez Crisis
- 1967 6 day war second exodus of Palestinians, estimated at half a million
- 1967 Following the 6 day war Neo-Zionism appears, a right wing nationalistic interpretation of Zionism fully supporting Settler Colonialism
- 1973 Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War
- 1982 Israel invasion of Lebanon
- 1987 Mass uprising, First Intifada, Hamas creation
- 1993 Oslo Accords and the fallout
- 2000 Camp David summit followed by the Second Intifada
- 2002 Jenin refuguee camp massacre during the Israel's Siege of Jenin
- 2005 Ceasefire and withdrawal of military forces from Gaza
- 2007 Hamas takes control of Gaza, Fatah-Hamas conflict, Israel imposes blockade
- 2008 Operation Cast Lead, the war on Gaza and the fallout
- 2012 8 Day assault on Gaza
- 2014 50 Day Gaza war Operation Protective Edge leading to 2251 casualties (including 551 children and 299 women)
- 2018 Border protests, 190 killed 28 thousand wounded
- 2019 Operation Black Belt
- 2021 Completion of Gaza-Israel barrier, clashes over Al Aqsa Mosque
- 2022 Netanyahu comes back in power while under corruption charges, deadliest year since 2014
- 2023 Israel turns 75 in May, Operation Shield and Arrow follows, Countdown to Genocide, what led up to the October 7 attacks

October 7 attacks, Hamas breaks through the security fence and goes on a mass murder spree while taking hostages
https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visualizing-data




Israel responds by launching a full scale war of systematic destruction in Gaza.

History of Political control



Deep dive into the formation of Israel, the major turning points and how the PA is nothing but an oppression tool.

The root of the conflict

The Settlers (inside the Jewish settlements)

How Israel was created

Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, a day before the scheduled end of British rule, establishing a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a national home on land to which they cite ties dating to antiquity.

Why Palestinians Engage in Armed Struggle

Israel has completely closed off the possibility of non-violent resistance or electoral organizing for Palestinians. The only option left is armed struggle.

https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/why-palestinians-engage-in-armed-struggle/


How Britain Started the Arab-Israeli Conflict | Free Documentary History

The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed that the crisis originated with Jewish emigration to Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. Yet the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier – in British double-dealing during the First World War. This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the Middle East.

The untold history of the Israel Defense Forces | The Big Picture

Before the formation of the Israel Defense Forces in 1948, there were three underground Zionist militias - The Haganah, the Irgun and the Lehi. They differed in tactics and beliefs, and at times fought with each other - but together they terrorised Palestinian villages and executed attacks and bombings against the British to force them to give up control of the land. They blew up hotels in Jerusalem, embassies in Europe and assassinated a UN mediator. After Israel was officiated as a state - the three militias would create the IDF - and their leaders would go on to form Israel’s government, become politicians, ambassadors and Prime Ministers.

Current situation

How Israel and US manufactured the case for genocide in Gaza: Marwan Bishara

Destruction of Gaza as of Oct 3rd 2024


Infrastructure damage up to September 8th


Estimate time to rebuild as of April 30th


Palestinians killed and displaced in the West Bank between Januari 1st - August 29th






The ongoing tragedy on the Israeli side

The Tragedy of Israel's 135,000 Displaced Citizens
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/what-makes-the-plight-of-israels-displaced-citizens-different/0000018d-ea95-d1e0-a1dd-fbf529ed0000

The impact of the October 7 attacks continues to be felt across Israel
https://hias.org/emergency-response-israel/

Next to still having little to no knowledge about the 100 remaining hostages, of which over 30 are believed to have died already.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67053011
A total of 97 hostages remain unaccounted for after being kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October last year

Make no mistake, this is a genocidal war

Investigating war crimes in Gaza I Al Jazeera Investigations



This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict.


Failing Gaza – Behind the Lens of Western Media



When political leaders speak of genocide, they repeat a timeworn mantra: "Never again." Over the past year, for the Palestinians of Gaza, "again" has become reality - mass casualties broadcast almost in real time by its victims. This film is about an alternative version of that reality - the one told by major Western news organisations - and how it has provided cover for Israel's war on Gaza. Based on interviews with more than a dozen insiders, it lifts the curtain on the inner workings of agenda-setting outlets like CNN, the BBC and The New York Times.

Despite Israel having had many decades controlling the images and media about the conflict, the image of Israel as a beacon of democracy in the ME is literally being blown up now. Hence JVP gaining traction, partly thanks to the ability of social media bypassing Aipac controlled media. Leading to the student protests that have and are still going around USA's university campuses.

Two young American Jews – Simone Zimmerman and Eitan – are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses. When they witness Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken. They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people.

Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children.

Documentary spanning 3,000 years, putting everything together in one video.

The documentary, The Big Picture: How Israel Won the West, examines how Israel has come to occupy such a privileged and protected place in the Western world. It traces the journey of the Jewish people from biblical stories of origin through centuries of persecution and the advent of Zionism, all the way to the creation of Israel and its ensuing occupation of Palestinian territory. Along the way, what is revealed is a process of transformation: Of how Jews went from being despised by early Christians as “Christ killers”, to being considered part of the white Western world and sharing a common Judeo-Christian heritage.

There's a correction on this documentary here https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9548974
It has one terrible mistake at 8:25 They perpetuate the myth of exclusion from professions outside of money lending. A claim that has no historical basis and in some cases the exact opposite.

Couple copied posts, recap from December 31st

Older posts start here
https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247202/us-politics-ot/34/

‘Gaza has been destroyed… we have nowhere to live’

Displaced Palestinians found little to celebrate on New Year’s Eve in Muwasi, a makeshift camp in the mostly undeveloped area of southern Gaza’s Mediterranean coast designated by Israel as “a safe zone”.

I don't know what it is exactly, greed, fear of the Muslim world or caught like a deer in headlights. Western governments have always been pro Israel and not immune to Hasbara either. Some might simply refuse to believe what's actually happening, politicians are just people after all and maybe even more easily influenced by propaganda and dogmatic thinking. Politics are the original echo chambers.

Governments are also full of old people, most set in their ways, rigid in their thinking. Most of the opposition voices come from the younger generations, more resistant to propaganda and disinformation, more used to the lies of the internet and far less prone to take government officials and major news outlets at their word. Which are just as complicit with their self censorship, selective coverage and pushing their own agendas.

The irony

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/israel-palestine-bbc-news-coverage-bias-gaza-war/

Broadcast journalists are sometimes accused of bias against Israel.

Such claims have been made, among others, by the pro-Israel media monitoring group BBC Watch and the right-of-centre press. More recently, the BBC was criticised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a former BBC executive for not referring to Hamas as “terrorists”.

Academics analysed Israel-Palestine coverage and found Palestinian perspectives were given far less time and legitimacy

...

In 2023, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed the centrality of the conflict’s backstory when he stated that the 7 October attacks “did not happen in a vacuum” and were related to the history of the occupation: “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” he said. “They have seen their lands steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence, their economy stifled and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”

Yet the BBC repeatedly gives reports of events without such context. For instance, on 23 November BBC Online reported that: “The conflict began when Gaza-based gunmen from Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 others hostage.”

The BBC’s coverage locates the origin of the conflict in the recent actions of Hamas – but Palestinians see themselves as resisting the actions of Israel stretching back decades.

In our earlier studies, which covered nearly five months of BBC One and ITV1 mass audience bulletins, we also found that, in the absence of context and history, BBC journalists would report the Palestinian “side” in terms of the suffering caused by the fighting. But the Palestinian perspective in terms of the reasons for the conflict was absent. The Israeli rationale, on the other hand, was often foregrounded in news reports.

I doubt most people in congress are pro genocide, but they took a stance for Israel early and now either have to somehow fool themselves into believing it was the right choice or admit that it's time to right the ship. A lot probably still refuse to see it as real, not allowing themselves to believe what's happening, it must be terrorist propaganda, can't really be that bad, we're the good guys!

Support is also highest in the USA and India, USA from the national trauma of 9/11 2001, India for 26/11 2008, both drawing parallels to October 7th, both never really looked into why those attacks happened. Or at least never told the public the rationale behind the attacks.

Oh look it's the UK again, about Jammu and Kashmir in particular
https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/why-was-british-india-partitioned-in-1947-considering-the-role-of-muhammad-ali-0

Jammu and Kashmir is a region administered by India as a union territory and consists of the southern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and between India and China since 1959.



There has also been a shift of not taking official organizations serious anymore (if they ever were). First the long campaigns discrediting global warming, then discrediting the WHO during Covid and even blaming them for the pandemic. Both eroding public support and political belief in the alarm bells these organizations ring. And of course the long culture of exaggeration, either trying to shock people into doing something or just to get clicks. Most people have shut themselves off from politics with the constant mud slinging between politicians.


The internet isn't helping either. Far too easy to get sucked into echo chambers, perpetuated by AI algorithms spoon feeding people their feeds. Nothing malicious in the algorithms, they simply serve up what you've been looking at before to get more of your attention. So once you lean to one side, you will only get more exposure to that side. Before the internet news papers were of course also biased, but people still talked more to neighbors instead of posting in echo chambers.

The internet is a great tool to find opposing views, yet far too few people do just that. It's so easy to get sucked into "recommended for you" and watch the next bias confirming video.


And those who know all too well how all of this works are the ones manipulating social media, mainstream media and politicians with targeted propaganda and disinformation campaigns. Social media is also complicit in genocides around the world.


The best new year's resolution is, think more for yourself.

Israel is further escalating the regional war with a drone attack in Beirut

Senior Hamas figure killed in attack in southern Beirut

US State Department denounces comments by far-right Israeli officials on resettlement of Palestinians

The US State Department on Tuesday rejected comments by far-right Israeli officials —Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — calling for the resettlement of Gazans outside of Gaza, denouncing them as "inflammatory and irresponsible. We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the Government of Israel, including by the Prime Minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government. They should stop immediately," State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement.

Miller noted in the statement that the department has been "clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel. That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world," he said.

The State Department’s comments come after Israeli cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition made remarks advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.

On Sunday, Smotrich, called for Palestinian residents to leave the Gaza strip, making way for Israelis who could "make the desert bloom," according to Reuters.

Ben Gvir expressed support for resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip abroad, declaring that the war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza” during a political meeting.

Ben-Gvir says Israel is not ‘another star on the American flag’

Blast in Beirut risks triggering a wider war

A blown-out building in the Lebanese capital flashed on local TV channels as plumes of black smoke billowed into the sky. Hamas said this was the aftermath of an Israeli drone strike that killed one of its most senior officials, Saleh Al-Arouri, and several other members.

The Israeli military has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment on the reports. If true, Arouri would be the most senior Hamas official killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

In addition to dealing a blow to Hamas’ leadership, the apparent attack also risks further broadening the arena of the Israel-Hamas conflict. It would mark the biggest Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital since the 2006 war between the two countries.

The apparent strike hit a popular neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which are also a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah. It reportedly struck a Hamas office, killing Arouri — one of the founders of the group’s military wing — during a meeting.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called it a “new Israeli crime that aims to drag Lebanon into a new phrase in confrontations,” referring to the ongoing, months-long tit-for-tat conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in the Lebanon-Israel border region.

Israel not claiming responsibility

Israel has "not taken responsibility" for the attack that killed a senior Hamas figure in Lebanon, a top official said Tuesday. During an interview with MSNBC, Mark Regev, who is a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said "Israel has not taken responsibility for this attack. But whoever did it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state. It was not an attack even on Hezbollah," Regev said.

Meanwhile, a former ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, praised Israeli security agencies for the “assassination” of Arouri and Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari skirted a question from a reporter on the death of the senior Hamas leader.

Israeli officials celebrate attack on al-Arouri

Israeli finance minister claims all of Israel’s enemies will "perish"

US congressman hails killing of al-Arouri

Protest in Ramallah against the killing of Saleh al-Arouri

Al-Arouri’s killing is ‘an act of terrorism’: Haniyeh

Lebanon to submit complaint against Israel to the UN

‘Israel wants this escalation’

Another distraction from the ongoing genocide, meanwhile in Gaza

‘Stop bombing Gaza,’ US senator says

WHO chief condemns Israeli attack on Khan Younis hospital

‘Everyone in Gaza is hungry’: UN agencies

More than a million people are now seeking safety in the already overcrowded southern city of Rafah, according to UNRWA, with hundreds of thousands sleeping in the open with inadequate clothing or materials to keep out the cold.

Palestinian Health Ministry: Respiratory and skin diseases continue to spread in Gaza amid humanitarian crisis

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in West Bank has provided its latest update on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Its information is draw from data supplied by hospitals and other sources in the Hamas-controlled territory. The ministry cautions that obtaining accurate data is difficult given how many people are now living in the streets. The latest update says:

Israel carried out strike that killed senior Hamas leader in Beirut, US official says

I copied your reply here from https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247202/us-politics-ot/56/#7

Western media has ignored this conflict for decades and always painted 'the oppressed' as the trouble makers. Every attempt at a solution has only led to Israel taking more land from Palestinians. If it weren't for cell phones, social media and brave grass roots journalism, we might never know the extent of what's going on. Censuring the internet so far has luckily failed. Despite disinformation, blocking/removing accounts, mass removal of posts by social media platforms, the truth still comes out.

It's very much the opposite here in the US.  If support for Palestine and support for Ukraine were a Venn diagram, they'd almost form a circle.

Reminder that the US and Israel have a shared government

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** User has been permanently removed from the politics forum.

Unfortunately most (if not all) Western countries fully support Israel regardless of what they do (I 100% condemn Hamas attack).

Nelson Mandela - "But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians"